Growing Coffee

On the plantation

Coffee is grown on small, evergreen trees in plantations across South and Central America, Africa and Asia. Because coffee cultivation is very labour-intensive, it is particularly suited to developing countries that depend on farming rather than industry.

Coffee trees are propagated by seeds or cuttings which are planted in special nursery beds. When the seedlings are between 8 and 12 months old, they are transplanted to fields where they are set in wet, fertilised holes. As they require exactly the right amount of shaded sunlight, regular watering, fertilising, and pest and weed control, young coffee trees demand constant care from farmers.

It can take up to 5 years for a coffee tree to begin producing good fruit, and they are often in decline after only 15 years!

Even more surprising, an entire year’s output from one tree is scarcely enough to produce 500 grams of soluble coffee.

The 2 main types of commercially grown coffee are Arabica and Robusta. Arabica beans account for around 70% of total coffee production, Robusta make up the rest. Arabica is popularly considered the best coffee but, like any naturally grown product, it ranges in quality from excellent to poor. Indeed, some Robusta beans are more desirable than poor quality Arabica beans. Whatever the variety, however, it takes expertise to select the best, and only the best beans make it into a NESCAFÉ coffee!

Picking the beans

Once coffee trees begin to produce fruit, it takes about 6-8 months (for Arabica coffee, or 11 months for Robusta) for the fruit to ripen into red coffee ‘cherries’. These cherries must be harvested regularly – as they become over-ripe after about 10 to 14 days. However, as coffee trees are small and grow mainly in mountainous areas, widespread use of mechanical harvesters is not possible. As a result, the ripe red coffee ‘cherries’ have to be picked by hand.

Preparing the beans

The coffee beans must be dried and prepared for roasting. There are two ways of preparing coffee beans – the ‘dry’ method and the ‘wet’ method.

Processing of the selected beans must begin immediately after the fruit is harvested, to prevent the pulp from deteriorating. The coffee beans must be dried and prepared for roasting. There are two ways of preparing coffee beans – the ‘dry’ method and the ‘wet’ method.

With the more traditional dry method, freshly picked red coffee ‘cherries’ are spread across special mats and left in the sun to dry. Drying usually takes 2 to 3 weeks, after which the ‘cherries’ are put into special ‘hullers’ to release them from their dried husk.

With the ‘wet’ method, a ‘pulping’ machine is used to break the outer pulp away from the ‘cherries’, exposing an inner protective coating of parchment. The beans are then soaked in large tanks and fermented to remove any remaining pulp. These wet beans are either machine dried, or laid out in the sun before being placed in a ‘huller’ to remove the parchment as well as a thin layer of ‘silver skin’.

Bean selection

At this stage, coffee beans have a greenish tinge and are therefore known as 'green beans', which have almost no coffee smell or taste.

The quality of the beans depends on many things, the most important being: the type of plant, soil, climate and care taken in handling beans after they are picked. One of the most critical phases in producing quality coffee is, without doubt, bean selection and blending.

Before being packed into bags and shipped across the world, green beans are sorted, graded and checked, to ensure a high quality end product. Stinkers, blacks, sours and foxes are just a few of the names for imperfect beans that are looked for. When they are found, they are discarded so as not to risk one bad cup of coffee being made, which is part of the reason NESCAFÉ coffee tastes consistently great!

Blending – only the best make NESCAFÉ Coffee

It takes expert blending of the best beans to make a jar of NESCAFÉ Coffee!

The beans chosen for NESCAFÉ coffee come from all over the world – Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Costa Rica, etc. It’s up to a skilled team of blending experts to ensure that the quality and flavour of the coffee they produce is consistent, year in year out. This consistency must be maintained in spite of all the variations that can occur from year to year, region to region, and bean to bean!

Samples of green beans are taken from bags in both the producing country and at the port where the bags arrive. These samples are then roasted, brewed, and tasted before a decision is made as to whether the quality is acceptable and which beans suit which type of blend. For example, only a certain mix of the right flavoured beans is used to produce the famous NESCAFÉ Blend 43.

Tasting and blending procedures are extremely complex, and each coffee maker guards the blends for their coffees very closely.

Roasting the beans

It is not until the green beans are roasted that they release the coffee aroma and flavour as we know it.

Depending on the roasting equipment and the desired flavour of the coffee being made, green beans are roasted at between 180oC and 240oC for between 3 and 12 minutes.

Different degrees of roasting are used to deliver different types of coffee. In general, a light roast gives a mild taste such as NESCAFÉ Mild Roast, a medium roast produces a well-rounded, rich flavour and aroma like NESCAFÉ BLEND 43, and a high roast gives a strong, distinctive flavour like NESCAFÉ Espresso.

Correct roasting produces a uniform bean colour. When the desired colour is achieved, the beans are quickly removed from the heat and left to cool.

Grinding

Before it can be brewed, roasted coffee must be ground. Grinding increases the surface area of the coffee, allowing the flavour to be extracted more easily when brewing.

There are different grinds, depending on the type of brewing process. If a grind is too fine for the brewing method, the coffee will be bitter. If the grind is too coarse, the coffee will be weak.

*Source: World of Coffee 2002; Nestec Ltd. Avenue Nestle 55 CH - 180-0 Vevey (Switzerland).

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